ALPHA LSG
MEIKO flight-type machines - versatile and economical for Inflight Catering
Designed to set new standards in airline catering, Alpha LSG opened a £10 million Premium Kitchen near Heathrow in 2014. More than 40 airlines will be serviced from the site, which has the capacity to produce 76,500 meals a day. Around 24,500 flights will be catered from the facility annually.
The site includes Heathrow’s only dedicated halal kitchen. It also features Japanese and Asian kitchens, a customer lounge and Culinary Academy and, of course, a huge dishwashing area to cater to the enormous amounts of crockery, cutlery, containers and rotables generated by the airline meals service.
“Making the most of our synergies will enable investment in our facilities and people, allowing us to provide a high-quality and sustainable service to our customers,” said a statement from the company.
Helping to give sustainability a healthy kick-start at the new site are four new airline-specification M-iQ flight-type dishwashing machines, featuring wider-than-average 980mm transport belts.
The dishwashing machines also feature extended loading and unloading sections to improve ergonomics for staff. A total of eight dishwashers are used on site: seven MEIKO machines and one from another manufacturer.
“We chose to work with MEIKO for a number of reasons,” explains Quirk. “There is not a lot of difference between different suppliers in terms of cost…it’s all about the level of support they can offer.
One of the key issues for ALPHA LSG is having a fast response time – but a response from people who know the machines inside out as they should do! Another reason was that MEIKO flight-type dishwashing machines are versatile and economical – and their reduced energy consumption compared to older inflight catering dishwashing machines is an added bonus. ALPHA LSG will be monitoring the use of chemicals, water and energy to see exactly how much they are saving.
